Controlled traffic farming is a management tool which is used to reduce the damage to soil caused when heavy or repeated agricultural machinery passes on the land. Controlled traffic farming is a system which confines all machinery loads to the least possible area through the use of permanent tracks.
However, after several years of controlled traffic farming, the soil structure usually changes considerably. The soil becomes softer and friable which is good for growing plants, but can cause issues with trafficability. When wheeled traffic passes over the same place repeatedly, the soil, over time, slumps down in the bottom of the track and oozes out and up on each side. The problem with having tracks in a field is that the track is often too deep to plant seed. Further, when the tracks become waterlogged, they become impassable for normal paddock operations.
Several manufacturers have attempted to build machines to fill tracks created by agricultural machinery passing down traffic lanes. Most of these vehicles use a series of inclined discs mounted to a frame or a simple grader blade. The discs are inclined so that when they are pulled behind an agricultural vehicle, the discs dig into the ground thereby shifting soil from outside of the traffic lane into the traffic lane. The discs are typically freewheeling and are rotated by contact with the ground. The discs are angled toward the traffic lane with discs located on each side of the traffic lane being inclined toward each other. Unfortunately there are limitations to the discs which primarily produce filled tracks that are uneven, cloddy and are not sufficiently compacted.